


Had We But World Enough and Time

by oxymoronic



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, One Shot, Palantír(i), Politics, Post-Battle of Five Armies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-03
Updated: 2015-02-03
Packaged: 2018-03-10 06:39:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3280445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxymoronic/pseuds/oxymoronic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Many years have passed since they last met, and yet Bard still cannot help but look towards the great forests above the lake, wonder whether the Wood King will one day call upon him again; but it is not until Legolas' return that he realises Thranduil's long silence may have a more sinister cause.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Had We But World Enough and Time

**Author's Note:**

> the working title for this document was "wolfhalls is trash". this is all you need to know about what follows.
> 
> that said, huge thanks have to go to wolfhalls (aka [janegreys](http://archiveofourown.org/users/janegreys/pseuds/janegreys) \- if you haven't read it already, her Bard/Thranduil series is my bible and also the reason why I wrote this at all) for bullying me into a) shipping and b) writing this, without your encouragement I would never have done either. also, despite what follows, I am hilariously the worst Tolkien nerd ever, and if anything I've done (or my shoddy attempts to vaguely learn some Sindarin) turns out to be horrific, please do call me out on it. I think I ruffle a tiny bit of canon here and there, but not too horribly.
> 
> title from the poem _[To His Coy Mistress](http://www.bartleby.com/101/357.html)_ by Andrew Marvell.

Summers pass, the winters come and go. The long, solemn lives of elves has always been a joke amongst their kin; how the slow, stately King would blink and miss another Master, turn up to the rare negotiations – a courtesy, always a courtesy, for what power did their tiny town have against the might of a species like theirs? – with the favourite sweetmeats of a politician now long since dead. And Bard had always smirked, thought this king must be dull-witted, self-obsessed, over-proud –

 – perhaps he was not wrong, or not entirely; for the years have fast collected to almost match a decade, and there is no longer any word from the Woodland Realm, nor from its solemn leader. The forest still hangs like a noose over the quiet, darkened lake; but Bard tries not to think of it. The elf-king may have many decades to spend, but the humble bowman does not. And then, when all hope seemed all but lost, the pinprick light of a silent, eerie vessel is seen approaching; a tall, impossibly elegant figure asks quietly at the docks of Dale for him by name, still calls him _bowman_ , though he has not carried that name for nigh on a decade now.

The young man relaying him the message finds Bard alone, sat silently in the king’s quarters – his quarters, now, though even with near a decade gone the truth sits uncomfortably in his gut. He has squared it, more often than not, with the knowledge that his children have a safe bed and good food for the rest of their lives, but in times past, with the people – _his_ people – starving and naught but news of evil on the move, even this has not been enough. The winter has been hard, again. He himself has not had a full stomach in almost a month, could not bear the weight of hot food on his tongue when he knows the hardships in the towns around. He feels thin, restless, overstretched, and though he once looked to the woods for help, there’s been nothing but silence from their once-friends in longer than Bard cares to remember.

The news, therefore, of an elf at the docks has crackled through the town long before it reaches Bard’s oblivious ears, sat ever-sombre and staring at the night-black lake. A jolt runs him through when he hears the word _elf_ , one tall and graceful with golden hair – but he knows already it will not be the king; Thranduil has never yet visited him across the lake. “I will go to him,” Bard says, and receives that familiar, inexorable flicker of confusion with the man’s knowing bow, the incomprehension as to why Bard would choose to take himself on foot through the city when the world would bend over backwards to service his pleasure.

The elf has quite a crowd by the time Bard reaches the dock, and this alone makes him reconsider whether the stranger’s comforts might be better served in Bard’s quarters after all. For the few children peering through their parents’ arms, this is the first they’ve seen of the mythical figures handed to them in tales of the Battle, of the forest, of their king. It makes Bard smile, to think there are lives in the world untouched entirely by the war –

– impossibly tall, young, and golden-haired; for a minute, Bard’s breath catches sharply in his throat. But then the elf turns, grants him a kind smile, and he recognises the son, not the father, after all.

Legolas seems softer than the last they met, calmer but somehow – heavier, as if weighted by some purpose he had no sight of before. And though the elf clasps him warmly by the shoulder in greeting when before he had barely been handed a brittle smile, there’s some faint lick of dread behind his eyes Bard cannot help but recognise and dread himself. “Well met, master bowman,” the elf says, still cloaking fear behind his gracious smile. “I am glad to find you safe.”

“Let us walk,” Bard replies, aware of the weight of the town’s gaze upon them, of the appearance of his son at the edge of the fray, armour-clad and looking troubled; he nods towards him once, leads the elf further along the jetty, back towards the blackness of the lake and in full freedom of their privacy. “I cannot say I’m unsurprised to find you here,” he continues, keeping his tone light as the wet wood creaks beneath their feet. “Are you on your father’s business?”

“My father,” Legolas echoes quietly, his eyes on the empty horizon. “I have been travelling Middle Earth for many years. I have swum the waters of Forochel and sailed the bay of Belfalas, seen the ruins of Annúminas and climbed the peaks of Ered Mithrim. I have walked with the rangers of the north for many moons, as my father said to, and now I have returned, to find – ” He lets the sentence falter, is transfixed momentarily by the towering blackness of the trees beyond. “Tell me. When was the last you saw of him?”

Bard wishes desperately he had gentler news to tell. “I cannot say for certain, but it was many years hence.” Bard pauses, softens his voice, adds, “There has been no word from Mirkwood for nigh on a decade, now.”

For a brief, awful moment, Legolas closes his eyes. “The woods will not let me enter,” he eventually replies; “I cannot find the way.” He says this with a calm demeanour, but Bard can perceive the anxiousness he is struggling to conceal. “I fear the very worst may have happened to them,” he finishes quietly, and a deep dread claws coolly down to the very base of Bard’s spine.

 

 

 

It had not happened suddenly. For many months, he and Thranduil had frequently exchanged letters, met often in Mirkwood’s sunny glades; the Wood King had presided over his coronation, wearing what Bard had firmly recognised as a smirk neatly clothed as a smile when Bard had knelt before him to take the crown. But though Bard would write to him without hindrance, they had held an unspoken agreement that he would not cross the lake without Thranduil’s invitation; and after many months had passed, the elf-king did not ask him. A few months more, and Bard’s letters ceased to find an answer, and silence fell on the woods above the lake, now vast and somehow empty.

Bard had made the trip unbidden once, many years ago; ferried himself across the still, noiseless waters to alight upon the other bank, walk silently amongst the towering trees alone. A flaunt disobedience of the rules he’d so strongly taught his children: to never go unguided into elvish woods. He had stood in the copse he had met the Wood-King in so often, and had been chilled by what he’d found, the eeriness of the once-familiar place, the stillness of the air, somehow pressing heavily, wetly against his skin. Not a shred of the warmth he’d seen before, the soft sunlight drifting down between the trees, perpetually tinted with an amber glow as if of a late afternoon in autumn.

And so he’d returned back across the hushed waters, back to the cheerful, bright lights of Dale, back to the kind smiles of his children and the warmth of his home. Perhaps he’d done the Wood King some wrong he hadn’t realised; perhaps Thranduil had finally decided to travel west with the last of his people, as he had often spoken of before. But regardless of the reason, the woods fell into silence, and through the years their people passed from truth to legend, until the residents of Dale could no longer remember much of those they had once called their friends at all.

 

 

 

But Bard had not forgotten. The weight in his chest had not grown sour, had not shrunk, had not transformed into ugly rage despite the many settings of the sun. He would often rest his eyes on the faraway trees, feel it unfurl and close again inside his chest, a painful warmth, but undiminished throughout the years which passed. It is a foolish thing, to live with such hope; but the burden of not-knowing was ever held inside his bones, an unforgettable weight. The forest grew silently on, the years gathered quietly between them, but Bard still could not stop himself from watching, waiting, wondering: _one day. Maybe_.

 

 

 

Legolas agrees sombrely to food and lodgings in Bard’s house, the best the tiny township can provide, and they walk back through the streets in silence, the harsh rap of their feet upon the paving-stones their only company save for the darting eyes of the people of Dale, snatching determined glimpses of the stranger in their midst. His stomach sinks to think of the delight Legolas’ arrival will have spread through the town, how the elves have always before brought food and aid and cheer; but Legolas has nothing but ill news to give. He should spread the word now, he knows – but somehow he cannot begrudge his people their fleeting glimpse of hope. It is their first in such a long while, and though it only worsens with time, it would feel undeniably cruel to deprive them of even such brief joy.

Bain awaits him anxiously in his quarters, as he suspected he might; the girls are absent, but he knows this is merely courtesy on their part, and they will demand everything their brother knows the moment he departs from him. His son is now undeniably a man, clad inexorably in the armour of their Watch, and, as is the job of all sons to outgrow their father, now standing a good head taller than him. Even so, he slinks guiltily to attention as his father enters, the remorseful expression on his face matching the one he so frequently wore when he and his sisters had been pilfering the baker’s cakes for want of food. “What news?” Bain asks; he’s worked hard to lose the roughness of his accent, but it still catches at the edges of his words, most often when anxious or speaking to his siblings.

“No news,” Bard replies heavily, crossing to the fire to chase away the dockyard’s chill. “He’s come to find his father.”

Bain frowns slowly, runs a hand through scruffy hair. “So the King is truly lost?”

Bard falters. The idea had not fully come to him; he realises he had assumed with the reappearance of Thranduil’s son that he might have some chance of seeing the King again. But Legolas’ words, in truth, suggest a concrete opposite: that Thranduil may indeed be lost to him. Feral sickness crowds thickly at the back of his throat, his stomach suddenly tight with a cold, swooping fear, and he finds himself praying desperately, directionlessly, that this is not the case. Must not be the case. By all the gods, it cannot be.

 

 

 

It is Tilda who finds him later, sat up in bed and staring thoughtlessly through the window at the black night beyond. She climbs up onto the mattress and he curls her tight against his chest, presses a kiss to the top of the head, though she is almost too grown to fit against him now – certainly is too old to be held so childishly. They spent many nights together in this manner when she was young, her mind thick with nightmares of the dragon, of the war, of her father dead and siblings gone and her city wracked with flames. He suspects the elder two had them too, but thought it below their years to come and sleep at his side. He is of course grateful for the peace in which they now reside, but he himself has spent many sleepless nights in guilt of the grief he brought upon his children. His town. His people.

Thranduil had been kind to all his children, impossibly so – but Tilda had been his favourite. And she, too, had treated him with more fondness than the others; Bain had been so nervous, so unlike himself in the presence of the elves, that it had often saddened Bard to see them all together. Sigrid, by contrast, became quieter, sharper, more reserved, and watched the Wood King with narrowed eyes, as if she suspected the harm her family, her father, would eventually suffer from his acquaintance. Correctly, as it seems. The thought sends another lurch of feeling through him, flickering around the edge of sorrow but not quite ready to name it.

“He’ll be alright,” Tilda says against his chest, her fingers loosely wrapped up in his shirt, as if sensing the way his thoughts had turned. But to Tilda, elves are bright, impossible things, immortal, indomitable; and Bard knows far too well how this is the world’s greatest lie, how truly prone they are to evil and to death. But he hugs her close, and kisses her head, and tries to let her reassurance permeate beneath his skin.

 

 

 

He sleeps little of the night which follows, and when the thin grey dawn eventually comes, he finds Legolas already waiting. The elf looks the worse for his night of sleep, rather than the better. Thranduil had spoken to him once of the bond between his people and the forest; how they are in some ways inseparable, cemented to their birthplace far more strongly than dwarves or men. How this is felt by sovereigns and their family more strongly still, how, some nights, his kingdom is as tangible and audible as any of his subjects, as familiar and intimate as an age-old friend. He knows, therefore, that for Legolas to be denied access to his kingdom, to return home and find the way barred from him, must be vicious torture, an unforgiving agony which he himself could never fully comprehend.

They have reached an unspoken agreement to try the forest again, together, in the blind hope that they combined might succeed where separately they had failed. The guards of the Watch greet him at the dock, solemn and stately in their most riotous of dress, and he can tell from the hidden scowl on Bain’s face that his son – and likely his commanders too – disapprove virulently of their leader waltzing off into the unknown forest with not a single one of their men at his side. But Bard knows they would be a hindrance, not a help; and Bain knows all too well that if he tries to insist upon an escort, the two of them will simply steal away without notice. He is, after all, his father’s son.

Legolas quietly slips from his side, steps down into the raft beyond; Bard pauses before his son, who is likely unaware he is chewing on his lower lip, as he is wont to do when he is worried. They stand together in silence for a while, broken only by the background slush of water against wood, and then Bard brings himself to smile, lay a hand on Bain’s arm. “I’ll be back by nightfall,” he promises, and though he is sincere, he wishes still he hadn’t said it; he has no means to ensure this is the case. Just as he’d sworn his safe return every day when they were children, seen the worry smooth off their faces, and had each time felt a sharp wrench of guilt at the vast vagueness of this promise, something which calmed their minds but to which he couldn’t possibly keep.

To him his son is still young, impossibly young, as he perhaps always will be; but he is also a man, and the nod he offers in reply is somehow inherently beyond his years. In truth, Bard knows now that if he were to venture out across the water and not return, his children are strong enough to cope without him: his greatest wish fulfilled. Thus, he parts Dale with a heavy heart, with not a little fear of what he and Legolas will find, but, at last, free of the guilt which had always before plagued him.

 

 

 

On the other bank, they dock skilfully in a nothing-place, no jetty, no mooring-post, just a rope thrown easily around a thick-trunked tree, a strong hold as if the forest itself has held an arm out to catch them; this itself Bard cannot help but feel is a hopeful sign. They stand for a moment in the thickness of the trees, both listening hard to the pressing, eerie silence, the weight of the unmoved air somehow both cold and hot against their skin. There is nothing. It was, they know, a fairly futile hope, but one they had to confront briefly nonetheless.

Legolas eventually dips his head in acquiescence. “The copse you spoke of,” he says, “where you met my father. Could you find it again?”

Bard pauses for a heartbeat, rakes back through the memory; then nods, gestures between the trees before them. “This way,” he replies, far more confident than he feels, and together they set off again, their crisp footsteps unnervingly somehow muffled by the ever-present silence. Time had diminished fully the sense of wrongness he had felt, walking through the forest before; how some unknown dread crawled across his skin, wriggled underneath it and clutched at his limbs, making the rise and fall of his steps an almost intolerable weight. A brief glance at his silent companion confirms it, the elf deathly pale and trembling with each step; there had barely been a lick of sweat on Thranduil’s face in the wake of the Battle, but there is some great evil here that has them wracked with nausea, their clothes cold and sticking to their skin.

Half an hour’s walk brings them to the outer borders, to an outpost and gate that should be thick with guards, and which in their absence they cross easily. They share a glance, but do not speak; each step brings a greater fear of what they might find ahead of them, but to turn back is not an option. No longer can either live in the hope born of ignorance.

They are both breathing hard by the time they reach the copse. Bard’s legs shake violently beneath him, his hands vicious fists at his sides, his whole body fighting the urge to vomit or run; he leans heavily on a nearby tree, tries to calm his mind as Legolas paces through the clearing, looking for something he evidently cannot find.

Truthfully, when his companion turns back to him, he looks nothing but distraught. “I cannot,” Legolas says, “there is not – ”

And then. The sloping arc of two adjacent trees, heretofore innocuous, suddenly looks to Bard’s eyes something like – and through it, yes, he’s certain, the gentle grey of paving, the hint of a light beyond – he daren’t blink, daren’t even breathe, grabs the elf by the arm and leads him wordlessly towards that vague glimmer of a sun –

 – and the kingdom unfurls around them, an inexorable presence Bard cannot believe was not there mere moments before, the graceful curve of the canopy above, the familiar, warm light against his skin. He had not truly noticed the bow of Legolas’ back or the tautness of his face until he sees him in the light of Mirkwood again, where such signs melt away in a heartbeat, leave him standing proud and smiling slightly – a smile just like his father’s, rare and golden. Bard looks away.

“We are near my father’s chambers,” Legolas says, voice warm and eyes bright, and he’s off towards them in an instant, skimming preternaturally fast beneath the trees; Bard follows more sedately, quietly picking his way along the path he’d taken with Thranduil so often, many years before. He had not clearly thought of the moment he now faces, to see the Wood King again – one which now seems to him so daunting. But even so, it would be a lie to say that it is merely concern which drives him on his journey down the winding road.

Bard only draws level with Legolas because of the door awaiting them, spelled with a password Legolas cannot break; he’s scowling at it thickly when Bard reaches him and says, quietly, “ _edledho_ ”, a joke of theirs Legolas cannot possibly know. At his word, the door falls obediently open, reveals its charge of a winding staircase, steps worn smooth with use. These Legolas takes slowly, sombrely, his hand hovering beside his plenitude of weapons, for they had seen no one on their way, and they do not know exactly what they will find when the stairs run out –

Legolas’ soft _ada_ tells him everything, and Bard’s stomach wrenches with relief. They find Thranduil frozen, staring unseeing at the view through his great, arcing window, and when he turns, notices he is no longer alone, the brutality of the shock he shows renders him almost ugly. He stumbles, says his son’s name in a ragged gasp; the look on his face is so ruined, so intimate that Bard is forced to look away, ashamed to have fouled their privacy.

His eyes fall instead on the plinth in the centre of the room, which before their entrance and his distraction Bard would guess Thranduil had been moving to. It itself is nondescript, waist-height and in a soft, white stone, but in a dip at its top sits a strange thing Bard has never seen before – come to think of it, he is certain that the last time he had stood in these chambers, there had been no such plinth at all. The thing is an orb, large enough to be cupped in both hands, and of a deep, dark, unknowable colour, neither truly black nor purple nor blue, and inside he can see a faint, golden light – or so he thinks; it seems to flicker and change as his gaze rests on it, forever in the corner of his eye.

Beside him, the elves are only just embracing; he had a little elvish, years ago, but their words come too thick and fast for him to comprehend. Instead, he finds himself moving unbidden towards this strange orb, his eyes shifting and moving with those dancing lights. His fingers reach out to touch, the tips colliding with the odd cool-warmth of its surface even as he wonders why, even as he hears Thranduil’s warning shout –

The forest is thrown away into blackness, into an endless nothingness spooling around his feet. The elves had told him often of how the orcs to them had felt like standing by something putrid, rotting, how evil brings a thick texture to the air they can taste like iron on their tongue. He had not understood, had not fully known the meaning of their words; but now, here, wherever _here_ is, he’s clenched suddenly with a bone-deep chill, a lurching nausea, skin crawling and nerves somehow aching with his urge to run.

And somewhere, somewhere, he knows that someone watches him. All that malevolence, all that spite, all that rage is spurting out from someone standing near to him – or not; for things feel both a hundred leagues away and yet no depth at all. Strange images are charging through his head – of Dale, of home, of places he does not know – forests filled with silver trees and endless fields turned black with ash – a low stirring in the belly of a mountain, the soft slosh of an unknown sea –

 _Stop_ , Bard thinks, and the pictures cease. The fury of his companion grows, but Bard does not feel fear; it is almost pity he finds instead, though he could not say to why. _Begone_ , he adds; _there is nothing for you here_. And even as the anger builds and builds, so strong and full of malice he almost thinks it tangible, it dwindles, now flung far away, its grasping fingers slippery and useless, leaving in its wake an endless reserve of peace.

As suddenly as it had dropped away, Mirkwood bursts back to life around him. It is too much, too much – Bard registers the iciness of his hands, the halting shake of his breath, the cool press of strength at his back of Thranduil – Legolas – he cannot tell – keeping him from falling. Then sleep slams up unclaimed to meet him, and there is no strength in him to resist it.

 

 

 

Bard feels like death when he wakes. His very bones seem to ache, every strand of hair seems somehow tender; even the touch of the sheets against his skin seems to leave it raw. “The pain will lessen,” a voice says. _Thranduil_ , and Bard remembers –

“ – children – ”

“Safe. Legolas is with them.”

 _Enough_ , Bard thinks. Cool fingers on his aching brow, and he sinks asleep again to the soft sounds of elvish in his ears, the quiet pull of agony receding from his skin.

 

 

 

When he wakes again, the room is empty.

Bard sits up slowly, wincing slightly at the dull tugging ache still shooting through his limbs, and looks around him. There is no sign of the clothes he’d worn before, and something thin and soft and elven-made sits gently against his skin; his face grows hot at the thought of being undressed and swaddled like a child, and though he has spent nigh on a decade wishing desperately to be back in this bed, he suddenly wants nothing more than his rough sheets and roaring fire back across the lake.

Fresh clothes await him with his effects, and he puts them on begrudgingly, if only because he cannot wander naked through the forest. A glance back into the main chamber confirms that he is alone; when he walks through, movement easing with every step, he finds the plinth empty, the unknown orb gone. This is sensible, he knows, but it makes him scowl, reminds him unpleasantly of a confiscation, of placing his sword on the highest shelf to keep the children from playing with it. Out of harm’s way.

Two options lie in front of him; the steps to his left through which he entered, and the winding path which will take him through to Mirkwood proper, to Thranduil and his throne. The thought of him upon it, imperious and forbidding, trying to seem to all the world as heartless and uncaring, makes him sick with anger, a bitterness he had not developed through eight long years of separation cresting hotly within his chest.

Bard glances back towards the bed, rumpled and disordered by his night of poor sleep, the solitary mess in the otherwise-perfect room. Eight years since he last saw the elven-king, and it pains him more than perhaps it should that his friend could not wait to see him wake; would have him seek him out, as if his time were better spent elsewhere, in the vaulting halls and quiet paths in which he is inexorably king.

Hence the password on the stairs below: _edledho_ ; go into exile. For in this place, in these rooms, they are neither king nor leader; they are but men, but equals. A soft haven in the heart of Thranduil’s never-ending kingdom, a nothing-place where they could meet and be naught but what they wished to be. It is thus no small malice that Thranduil would have him leave it to greet him, force him to stand before him as an uncrowned man before Mirkwood’s indomitable leader.

Thick anger crests inside Bard’s throat, and he turns towards the former path with half a heartbeat’s hesitation. Bard reaches the edge of Thranduil’s kingdom without a single hindrance, and, on finding his and Legolas’ raft still left abandoned, sets out for Dale without ever looking back.

 

 

 

Bard had said nothing to his children upon his return; this had not initially been his intention, but it had occurred to him quite bitterly that having found the elves were not suffering from some great evil, having found that they had merely drawn up their walls and barred up their doors and turned their sight only inwards yet again, there was no renewed promise of their kinship as before. Bard had travelled across the lake in fear of Thranduil’s life, and had found him the very picture of perfect health –

– except. Bard cannot help but dwell on the Thranduil they had found; alone and somehow lifeless, grey and somehow aged even beyond his many years. A spectre of himself, still ubiquitously clad in the elven crown.

A day passes, two. The guilt tugs naggingly at his gut, the vague sense of an error on his part and not on Thranduil’s; and then a fleet of elves arrives, Legolas at their head, their boats stacked high with food and wine and medicine, and Bard feels such relief as he has never known. They are still a long way from midsummer, but that night they throw the largest feast in almost a decade, pitch tents the length of Dale, all houses overspilling with merriment and goods; old friends reunited, clasping hands and sharing tales. Bard himself does not join any table, wanders freely through the city and drinks in the joy of his people, their tangible relief. Even if it is a brief respite, for some of them it will be the greatest happiness they’ve had in nigh on a decade, and the aid the elves have provided will easily see them through a dozen winters.

For this he is immensely grateful; and this he makes fully known, finds Legolas smiling easily and perched atop a table, listening with rapt attention to one of Tilda’s trademark rambling jokes. He’s wearing a small diadem upon his brow, thin silver twisted in an elegant design, set in the centre with a gem of pure starlight; a gift from his father, Bard knows. And with this thought, he cannot help but miss him, a sharp, painful lurch, to see their children together and to find Thranduil absent from his side.

Tilda’s long-awaited punchline comes; Sigrid, sat beside her and already having suffered through many of her sister’s jokes, rolls her eyes skyward, whilst the others around her crease double with laughter. Tilda flushes a little to find her father watching, then flashes him a grin, wide and bright and beautiful and so impossibly like her mother. This hurts too to realise; but a duller pain, a deeper one, a grief he’s breathed for years and oftentimes so much a part of his heartbeat that it is almost quite forgotten.

“Will you sit with us?” Legolas asks; deep in rêverie, Bard had quite missed that their party had dispersed, clustered and reformed. 

Bard shakes his head. “I only came to offer my thanks for your father’s kindness,” he says. “I know not what happened these past few years, but I am glad he thinks to be our friend again.”

Legolas smiles; but it is thin, humourless, his eyes glazed and far away. “He thought me dead,” he says quietly, and the words stop Bard’s heart within his chest. “That object you touched – it is named Palantír; I do not know how my father came to have it. It was used by the men of old to see things which are far away...” He shudders. “You must know of the growing evil in the east, stirring in the pits of the plain of Gorgoroth. It cannot make the Palantír lie – but every day my father searched for me, and every day it made sure he could not find me.”

Legolas pauses. For a heartbeat he looks somehow haunted, as if all his many years suddenly shone clearly through his youthful face. “That evil killed my grandfather, my mother, and now, he thought, me,” he continues, softly. A terrible, clashing silence; then Legolas smiles again, but this time it is honest and warm. “Forgive him a little distraction. I should think he thought both his family and his kingdom unutterably lost.”

A weighty silence falls. Bard is not sure he can accept eight long years of desertion as _a little distraction_ ; but he also knows how heavily the loss of his son would weigh on the king’s heart. “He told me nothing of all this,” Bard says finally in reply, and he supposes this troubles him as much as all the rest; he will readily forgive the king his fear, his duty, and his dread, but to be cast aside as nothing at the smallest sign of trouble hurts him more than he can bear. He had thought himself more than that. Foolishly, it seems.

Bard finds himself flushing thickly in the wake of this crude sentiment; but to his surprise a glance finds Legolas sympathetic, and not scornful. It occurs to him this may not be the first time he’s had to offer apologies on his father’s behalf. “Dine with him,” Legolas says, and Bard can’t help but smile.

“Does this come from you or him?” he asks, wryly.

The elf pauses. “I think, in his way, all of this – ” He gestures at the upstacked barrels, the smiling company of elves, the tables groaning with the weight of their food. “ – was in truth an invitation.” He offers Bard a small grin. “I understand it took him four centuries to ask my mother to share dinner.”

Bard laughs, warm and open; and he realises then how rare a sound this is, how unfamiliar the bright happiness he feels. “Very well,” he murmurs, grinning. “Just once. What is eight years in the face of four hundred, after all?” he adds, one eyebrow raised, and Legolas’ smile turns wry.

 

 

 

The chest beside Bard’s bed has sat untouched for many years; there has been little need for the soft-spun fineries that lay within, the fine fabrics Bard despises to wear after decades of rough cloth against his skin. But he had gone before with Legolas to meet the elven-king unwashed and unkempt, clad merely in his grubby dayclothes, and the thought now makes him wince.

At the top of the chest he finds a crown, unused but unforgotten; a single band of gold thrice-wrapped about, decorated finely with tiny amber leaves which shimmer softly in the light. A gift of Thranduil’s, many years ago, and Bard holds it gently up against the candlelight, the metal warming to his fingertips as it shines. Worn by Thranduil in his princehood, Bard knows; and it feels old within his hands, old and somehow alien in its beauty. He sets it aside with a heavy heart, returns to the clothes which lie beneath it, dresses in solemn silence, quelled now by an ever-mounting dread.

When he turns to fetch it again, only half-certain whether he should wear it, he finds it not sat upon the table but in Sigrid’s hands instead. She turns it absently between her fingers, but her eyes are set on him, a faint scowl tugging at her face. “You go tonight?”

“Aye. At sundown. Legolas is meeting me at Esgaroth.” He offers her a smile. “I hear your archery is going well.”

“His highness is very patient with me,” Sigrid replies tactfully, ever the diplomat. Her eyes are back on the crown between her fingers, the warmth of its colour shining brightly in the dying sunlight. Tilda had stolen it from him once, not long after he had returned with it sat upon his brow, and tried to place it on her head, a hopeless quest; it had fallen loosely down around her neck, and she had glowered jealously at how it rested comfortably on her father’s forehead when he took it back from her. “So many years ago,” Sigrid says softly, and he knows then they share the same distant memory in silence.

Bard takes her meaning perfectly. “You are more to me than he could ever be,” he says gently. “If you would not have me go – ”

“That isn’t fair,” she says roughly, throwing him a thin-eyed scowl, and he accepts her point silently. “Eight years, eight _years_ of emptiness and solitude, of you afraid and lonely, and now – ” Sigrid breaks off, frowns at her feet, flushed and angry at her own distemper. “I think him cruel,” she adds bluntly, after a tight pause. “To do such a thing so carelessly and then still assume he holds some power over you.”

Bard lets a sigh fall out from between his teeth. “He will have meant no malice by it,” he replies; but he cannot tell her she is wrong.

She regards him silently for a while, that thick scowl now firmly on her face. “I know he will bring you happiness, if he chooses,” she admits, and glances back down to the golden crown resting in her hands. “The gods know I have often wished that for you these past few years,” she adds, and her voice is soft.

She lifts her head to him again, and the smile she gives him is somehow sad. She, like her brother, has almost outgrown him now, but he still stands tall enough to stoop and press a soft kiss to her brow; and when they part, she raises up her hands, and he bows slightly to let her place the crown upon his head. A quiet blessing of his request, just as the last flash of daylight spills dimly over the horizon.

 

 

 

Bain’s men are clad in their finest regalia when they escort him to Esgaroth; he too suspects they feel ungraceful and out of place beside their elvish counterparts, and it makes him smile to think of it, that men should ever vainly hope to emulate some of that great beauty of the Firstborn. Legolas alone awaits him at the lake-town’s outer docks, a second elf he does not know at the helm of the fine boat he stands beside, an elegant design in the dark wood Bard recognises from Thranduil’s chambers. Their sons together grasp hands on meeting, and Bard has to bite back a smile at the solemn look Bain wears to welcome him, so unlike his usual, easy countenance. Then the two companies are parted; the ship departs easily at the elves’ behest, and Bard turns his attention towards the distant forest, lit up for the first time in many years with tiny golden flecks of light.

There is silence on the lake, save for them. Bard is sure the unnamed, unknown elf at the helm must be able to hear the quickened pounding of his heart inside his chest, a clumsy, loud rhythm which to her must seem so inelegant; but Legolas affords him a warm smile, his eyes resting on the crown upon his brow with a quiet flash of recognition. “It suits you well,” he says, and Bard flushes at the praise, glances uneasily out into the open water.

Their way up to the Wood King’s realm is more circuitous this time; they take the sanctioned path, lit up either side with a gentle, unending glow, winding softly through the forest until it reaches the city’s high blue gates. It is almost unrecognisable to the dark land through which he and Legolas had tread but days before; all sides bathed in golden light, the very air they breathe somehow restful to the touch, as if a great warmth had spread throughout the kingdom after the prince’s return.

To his relief, on entrance to the king’s city itself the escort becomes far less formal; Legolas turns away from the road which leads towards the great dining halls, directs him towards his father’s chambers instead, and Bard cannot help but breathe a sigh of short relief that his rusty courtier’s manners are not required of him tonight. Legolas pauses at the base of the path, turns to offer Bard a smile and a brief embrace. “Be kind to him,” he murmurs quietly, too softly for the flanking guards to hear, and when they separate there’s a faint tug of anxiousness about his face; then Legolas departs, and Bard is left to face the soft, sloping corridor alone.

The Wood King’s rooms are empty. There is, as ever, that quiet moment of release the moment he passes through the threshold, as if some great weight has been freed from underneath his skin. He’s always wondered whether this is something Thranduil dreads as much as welcomes; to be freed of his titles is also to strip him bare. He doubts even Thranduil’s son sees him only as a man.

The white plinth still stands present, but the shallow dip at its top lies empty. Bard chases the sharp rim with his fingertips, distracted; the records of the kings of Dale are poor, and there had been naught but a chaste reference to these Palantíri, to the danger he so ignorantly faced. He scowls softly. The high-born Kings of Gondor had so rarely troubled themselves with the wild lands to the north. “It has passed beyond my kingdom,” a voice tells him from behind, and Bard glances round, startled; this he had forgotten, the elf-king’s ability to appear, unrumpled and somehow insolent, without even the softest footfall’s warning. “Gone into the west, into the hands of my kin at Lindon. I did not trust its purpose here.”

Bard lifts his hands from the stone, turns to face the king fully; and though he had braced for it, spent these last days preparing for it, he still finds himself snatched breathless, mind snapped and overwhelmed. Thranduil hasn’t aged a day. Bard knows for certain he can’t grant him this same kindness; that there are more than a few wisps of grey at his temple, that the heaviness of rulership has clawed permanent lines into the tender skin around his eyes. But Thranduil’s eyes are ageless; his silver hair still parts in endless, unmoved waves around his face, not an inch longer than when they parted. Bastard, Bard thinks, fondly.

And yet. He cannot truly say he finds him entirely unchanged; for there is a remoteness to him that he has no memory of before, or certainly not from when they had last parted. It reminds him more of the way which Thranduil had looked upon him when they had first met, dispassionate eyes and a neutral gaze, as if testing him somehow, Bard forever uncertain as to whether the elf-king found him wanting. Cold and somehow wary, a thing that Bard could never comprehend; what threat he could possibly pose in this great company of men.

There had been nothing of this when they last met: the king had worn a smile as often as a frown. But here they are, a vast silence thick between them, and Thranduil standing seemingly so calm and unconcerned across the quiet room. Another man might think this callous; but Bard knows full well that though the elf’s skin may not roughen with age, this does not mean the years have left him wholly untouched. Thranduil’s colder disposition speaks as strongly of the years passed as do the grey hairs at Bard’s temple. In truth, it saddens him, to see so patently how greatly his friend has suffered since they last had met.

To his surprise, it is the elf-king who looks away, down towards his folded hands. “I hear your children are all well?”

“Aye,” Bard answers softly. “Bain matches me for height, and the girls are not far behind him.”

Thranduil nods. “I should like to see them again,” he says absently, his distant gaze now turned back to the horizon, his mind already seemingly elsewhere.

A soft dread is building in the base of Bard’s gut. In this man he sees but a shadow of his former friend, never so distant and so cold; he’d thought Thranduil had returned to him, but instead a stranger wears the Wood-King’s face, grants him offhand niceties with empty sentiment. “They would like that too, I’m sure,” Bard quietly replies, his heart now heavy in his chest.

He should not have come. Eight long years, and he’d chased the foolish thought that when they stood together once again, it would be no different than before. But the elf-king will not look at him; and he should not have come. Bard almost wants to laugh, a cruel and bitter thing. He’d thought it agony to live with unknown hope; but he’d live fourscore of those years again than have this mockery returned to him, to have his endless optimism torn from him and dashed upon the floor.

It must weigh upon his words; Thranduil’s face is briefly gripped with a flicker of a frown, the first uncertainty since he entered in the room, and for one tight, breathless moment it makes Bard wonder. Perhaps he has been too quick to judge, too susceptible to the king’s devices; for Thranduil was ever the more subtle politician, and would readily throw up such a great pretence to mask his true intentions. In an elf’s eyes, centuries may come and go quite readily, but Bard cannot imagine the years pass easily when one stands in fear of grief, of the loss of one’s only son. Brittleness may snap, he thinks; and though seemingly indomitable, shame and guilt in elves run even deeper still. It is, at any rate, he decides, some of the numbness loosening within his chest with every fresh heartbeat, altogether worth a try.

“Forgive me,” Thranduil says, and Bard can no longer separate his fact from fiction, but thinks he might detect some vague worry pulling at his words. “I have not offered you a drink.” There is, of course, a ready pitcher of wine set upon a handy table, a pair of bright silver glasses flanking it; Thranduil takes up the jug with practiced ease, passes him a glass with a steady hand. “Your building work progresses well?”

“Esgaroth is all but done. Dale has a market, houses – the larger buildings suffer from our want of stone. And an enviable architect,” he admits; in Girion’s time, the kings of Dale had housed themselves in halls which matched the Greenwood and Erebor in their beauty. To Bard this hardly matters; his family lives well, better than he had ever dared to hope, and the lack of ready amenities in the town – of fresh water in the summer and good heat in the bitter winters – bothers him far more. “We hired a man from Linhir some months ago, but last we heard he had not reached the Brown Lands.”

The elf-king nods, drinks lightly from his glass. “You must tell me of his arrival. I should like to see his plans.”

Bard cannot help a fleeting smile. “My lord Dáin said so also. I almost think to write to him, to warn him of the charge he has brought upon himself in dealing with the two of you.” Bard throws the king a quick half-glance, thinks to spy some brief flicker in Thranduil’s eyes; amusement lived and then forgotten. Or concealed, maybe. If Bard is very lucky. Hope curls afresh inside Bard’s gut, and with it comes his courage; he wets his lips, takes a drink, and says, “I was glad to see your son again.”

The change is almost imperceptible; but to Bard it is as striking as a punch, as conspicuous as a sun-broad smile. “Yes,” the king replies, his voice now utterly remote, expression entirely dispossessed. “He has travelled very far since you last met.”

“He told me of the Palantír,” Bard continues quietly. “Of what you saw. Of what you did not see.” Thranduil’s gaze is now impossibly cold, trained through the open window with a mannered air of unconcern; his long fingers still clench his glass, their knuckles shining white. “You could have told me,” he adds, softly. “You could have said.”

Those distant eyes now turn to him; and instead of the emptiness he had thought to see, he finds them ageless and full of fury. “Yes. I could have,” Thranduil murmurs, his every word wrought sharp and vicious with his rage. “And what would you have done?”

A terrible, clashing silence falls. Then Bard laughs, a horrible, humourless thing, scours his face and laughs again; even on his very worst of days, he had not thought to mean so little to the king. “You must realise,” Bard begins, his words tight and strangled by his anger, “it is not noble to lock yourself away and hide from the world and call up sorrow as your excuse. We’ve spoken so often here of duty, and yet – I have had a hundred of my people lost these past few years, through famines, through sicknesses, through orcs and goblins from the north – things your people could have helped us with! You would speak of grief – but what of the grief of their families? What of mine? Is it somehow less virtuous than yours, lacking in centuries in which to wallow?”

With great effort, Bard forces himself to stop, unbunches the tight fists of his hands, drags his fingers roughly through his hair. Thranduil stands transfixed before him, utterly pale. “I thought you dead,” Bard finishes, quietly, voice wrecked and wretched. “I thought you lost to me.”

“I was,” Thranduil replies eventually, his words half-formed and faraway. His eyes are turned towards the ground. “In an evil of my own making.”

Something akin to pity breaks sharply through Bard’s anger; though pity is an unjust word, too fraught with ignominy to be fair. He forgets that Thranduil meant no malice by his actions, that the elf-king has not spent these past few years in happy merriment without him. Bard forces in a steady breath, sets down his glass, shakes his head. “Forgive me. I have been unkind.”

Thranduil pauses. “You have been honest,” the Wood-King says, and for a moment he is still and cold; then the slightest edges of a smile pull tightly at his mouth. “I have missed that.”

Bard cannot help but echo it; the sight of that small grin is tugging loose some of the fear wound inside his gut, and he finds the edges of his courage once again. “I know much time has passed, and much distance built between us. But – ” He pauses, tries to fathom out the words, tries to cater to the Wood-King’s anger and cause him no further guilt or shame. “I would have us friends again,” he finishes quietly, truthfully.

The elf-king’s eyes flash to him quickly, and then away; for an awful, dragging heartbeat, Bard thinks his cause entirely lost. “Yes,” Thranduil finally replies, with a slow and solemn nod. “Friends.”

A great peace grows between them, and Bard’s breath seems to come easier in his chest. “I have been a poor host,” Thranduil says, after a contented pause. “You came here to dine with me.”

Thranduil gestures towards the table, laid high with food; Bard grins, steps towards it. “I think you’ll find my manners haven’t much improved,” Bard replies wryly. The humble bargeman had not, of course, been well-trained in elvish etiquette, and his early visits to Thranduil’s court had been marked with looks of mild disgust from the elves unfortunate enough to surround them; his greatest crime may have merely been attempting to eat oysters with a fish spoon, but it had left him shamefaced enough to study rapidly before returning to dine with the Wood-King again. Thranduil himself had never as much as mentioned it.

“I should like to hear of Sigrid, and of Tilda,” Thranduil says as he sits beside him. “Legolas tells me Bain is in the city’s Watch.”

“Legolas is filling Tilda’s head with stories of Corsairs and of Dúnedain,” Bard says dryly. “I live forever in anticipation of her asking to go wandering off to the four winds without me.” Thranduil smiles at this, a free and easy thing, and it curls a low heat deep in Bard’s gut. He looks away. “But they are well. Sigrid sits in on my council and is wiser than the half of them. Tilda has wrangled training with Bain’s swordsmen – she’s frighteningly skilled, in truth.”

“I shall tell Legolas to visit her,” Thranduil says easily, reaching for the wine; Bard had wondered for a silly moment whether the elf-king would reproach him for allowing his daughter to learn to fight, before remembering that amongst the Mirkwood elves, though still unusual, to train women thus is nowhere near as rare. “And Bain?”

“In the Watch, as you say.” Bard grins a little. “He’s not much fond of politics.” Thranduil throws him a wry look, the comment left unspoken, and Bard swallows back a laugh. “Is all well with you?”

Thranduil nods. “There is as ever trouble at the southern border. Spiders, and other kinds of evil. Silence has fallen over Dol Guldur, but it will not last.” Thranduil sets down his glass, for an instant transfixed with anxiousness and fear; then the moment passes, and he is all ease again. “But otherwise, yes. We are all well.”

Their conversation turns to better things; Thranduil has much to learn about the world without his borders, and Bard of that within. The slow but scathing politics of Thranduil’s court has always been of great fascination to him, all glamour and thrill where his is merely drudgery, whose neighbour had stolen whose hen and so on, and they swap neverending stories, Bard settled back in his chair contented, the fire chasing away the last few cold shadows of the winter. Many hours pass before Bard thinks of home again; he had not thought to stay so late – or, well. Their conversation paused, Bard throws a sideways look at his companion, absently scours his fingers through his hair. He had perhaps hoped to, yes. He fights a furious flush at the thought. “I should soon return to Dale,” Bard says evenly, the idleness of his words sounding forced even to his ears.

“There are rooms here for you to use,” Thranduil replies lightly; and Bard cannot decide if there is some tenseness there or not. “I can have word sent to your son that you wish to stay the night.”

Thranduil will not look at him, and a sour taste grows unpleasantly in Bard’s mouth. He thinks back to their words before; when he had asked for friendship, he had of course hoped for more. Wrongly, as it seems. “You are kind,” he answers quietly. “But I think it best that I return.”

For an awful, aching pause, Thranduil does not reply; and when it comes, his words are perhaps more painful still. “I know what you would want of me,” he murmurs, and Bard feels his face run hot with shame, chided as if he were a child.

“Forgive me,” Bard mutters, and shoves back his chair, moves to stand, “I should – ”

“ _Bard_.” Bard forces himself to still, tries to steady the quick breaths within his chest. “You mistake my meaning. It is not – ” He pauses, rethinks his words; this in itself would be strange enough, but Bard thinks he also spots a touch of colour to the elf-king’s skin. “Your counsel would have you marry again, yes?”

The question makes him scowl. “Some nobleman’s child of a daughter, yes. To likely kill her bringing forth another son. But what of it? It has no meaning here – ”

“It has _every_ meaning here. Men are stupid and men are cruel, and you know as well as I what they will usurp from our friendship.” Thranduil’s mouth twists darkly. “You are not well-liked among my kin. They think you make me soft-headed and distracted, that you cloud my judgement and use me ill. There were many here who were glad for these past years of silence between us.” He sets his glass down upon the table, drums his fingers against the side. “But your men will treat you worse for it than mine.”

Anger rankles beneath Bard’s skin. “Then you would have me go?” Bard asks quietly, fear tightening his chest.

“No, I would not,” Thranduil replies, glancing back at him; the quelling look he wears is ageless and somehow sad. “I only wish to warn you what will happen if you stay.” His expression gentles slightly, and he lets loose a sigh. “I would have you with me for every step I take in this world and in the next,” Thranduil says, his eyes distant and faraway. “But we are kings. We are not our own men.”

“ _Edledho_ ,” Bard softly replies, and Thranduil’s smile is a misnamed thing, twisted and dismayed.

“A pretty lie,” he murmurs. “But nothing more. Even within these walls we are not truly safe.”

A moment passes, two. Thranduil will not look at him; but Bard cannot bring himself to go. “But you would have me stay,” Bard quietly says, and something flickers quickly through the elf-king’s face, too rough and desperate to be concealed; a thousand years of loneliness, eight long years spent in ruthless self-denial of his longing. “Thranduil,” he murmurs, pushes back his chair and comes to stand beside him. Still the elf-king will not look his way, his hands bared upon the table, fingers bunched and knuckles glowing white. “ _Say it_ , damn you.”

An endless pause. Then: “Stay,” the elf-king says, and Bard twines his fingers in his crownless hair and kisses him. It stays gentle for three heartbeats, maybe four; then it’s cool fingers against his skin, the hard thump of the table at his thighs when Thranduil stands and this, yes,  _this_ , the warmth and strength and greed and dizzying, breathless hope of it, feels strangely like coming home.

They are dressed far too well for this, idiocy on both their parts, a thousand silly little clasps and bows and buttons to be fought. They stay pressed together for a moment, unconcerned with anything except the long, hot push of each others’ bodies, the sharp rediscovery of their intimacy; then Thranduil steps back to rid himself of his clothes, fingers stumbling loose and mouth slack. Bard is left sprawled and spread upon the table, pulling in his shaken breaths. He drops back his head, presses the crux of his palm between his legs, moans a little at the burst of pleasure; somewhere before him, the elf-king snarls.

Bard is hauled roughly to his feet, one hand firm against his neck as Thranduil drags him up, the other sliding swiftly under the bottom of his shirt, nails scouring at the skin. He shoves Thranduil back to tug away his clothes, backs slowly towards the bed, wicked grin firmly wrapped about his face at Thranduil’s look of fury, unaccustomed to not having absolute control. This he had also somehow forgotten: the hollow flush of red caught high on Thranduil’s cheeks, the way lust and anger make his bright eyes run dark. To be the focus of all that wanting, tightening ever further with the distance growing between them, turned over threefold by every step Bard takes back towards the bed.

Bard drops down on the mattress, takes himself in hand, bites down on his lip; then Thranduil seems to come back to himself, crosses the room and joins him on the bed, and Bard’s wrists are snatched and pinned above him, Thranduil’s hand swiftly in place of his own. Bard arches his back, gasps out a _fuck_ , hips snapping up for purchase. His hands furl and unfurl where they lie pinned above his head, desperate to touch, and Bard wonders whether he’ll have to beg; then clever fingers bury in his hair instead, and he drags his unrestricted hands across Thranduil’s skin, one tangled in the hair above his neck, the other pressing hard against the small of Thranduil’s back. This brings their hips sliding perfectly together, and Bard moans at the wrench of pleasure, thick and low and desperate, driven mad by wanting.

Then, unthinkably, Thranduil pauses, pulls away. Bard swallows back a whine at the cruelty of it; then recognises the gold circlet of leaves is held gently in his hands. Bard had forgotten it still sat upon his head. Handed to him so many years ago, on the last day of a baking summer, placed upon his brow with the quiet blessing: _iaur ah uireb_. Ancient and forever. It feels strangely cyclical to live through the reverse; to have Sigrid lay it on his head, and Thranduil then remove it.

Thranduil’s eyes are worn and ancient with regret, but Bard has him here, gentle-faced and breathing raggedly between his open legs, and he takes it from him quietly, places it aside. “Forgiven,” he murmurs, his palm resting warmly against Thranduil’s jaw, his own mouth breaking into a smile. “All is forgiven – _please_ – ”

Something tears through Thranduil’s face, too fast for Bard to follow, not quite grief or rage or wonder – and then Thranduil pins him down and kisses him again, hard and somehow vicious, fingers twisting in Bard’s hair. Bard spreads his legs, hooks his heels around Thranduil’s thighs and moans as their hips meet again, at the pleasure tightening hot and low inside his gut. Thranduil’s fingers runs gently down his chest, his palm a scalding weight against his stomach, and when he takes them both in hand, cool fingers impossibly long and clever, Bard throws back his head, lets loose a ragged gasp – too much, too much, he will surely –

Thranduil stops, murmurs _no_ against his neck, and for a breathless, desperate moment Bard thinks he might scream with the need building beneath his skin. Then he forces himself to breathe calmly, reopens his eyes and looks at him; finds Thranduil’s mouth slack, lips bitten-red and open. “I would,” he says, pauses, his words rough-edged and clumsy with desire, and Bard nods before he speaks again, _anything_ , whatever he wishes – and then Thranduil is gone, Bard wrenched and dizzy with the loss, the cold air rushing up to meet his sweat-soaked skin.

Thranduil’s kiss is chaste when he returns, a soft apology murmured against his mouth, and Bard’s scowl is only half-hearted at best, incongruous beside his smile, open and warm. Thranduil moves further down the bed, and Bard spreads apart his legs, places his feet flat against the mattress, bites hard on his lower lip when Thranduil’s slick fingers dip below his waist and come to rest against him. “Slow,” Bard warns in a murmur, breath tangling on a gasp as he presses the first inside him.

“You have not – ?” Thranduil asks, his free hand clenching slightly, a sharp flicker-press of nails against Bard’s hip.

Bard cannot help but smile at the falter. “Eight years may be but a heartbeat in your eyes, but I could have married some pretty princess, fucked every man in Esgaroth.”

Thranduil’s eyes are dark. “Did you?”

Bard smirks. “No,” he murmurs, eyes fluttering shut as a second finger joins the first, fighting back a shiver. “I would have invited you to the coronation.”

Thranduil smiles at this, thick and wicked, and gentles the movement of his fingers, now torturously slow. “No one?” he asks, low and warm and deep inside his chest, and Bard gasps a little, hips moving of their own accord, chasing for the pleasure Thranduil still denies him.

“None,” he mutters through his gritted teeth, and the look on Thranduil’s face is raw and somehow aching, caught around a thought he cannot fully shape. “ _Please_ , I would have – ”

“Almost,” Thranduil says softly, sliding in a third, and Bard winces at the stretch, knows later he will be grateful for it. Thranduil leans down to kiss him again, warm and gentle, mouth curved into a smile, a soft litany of elvish words Bard half-understands murmured against his skin: _patience_ and _beloved_. Then Thranduil’s fingers brush against him perfectly, and Bard cannot help but cry out at the pleasure, sharp and brutal after so much gentleness.

He knows full well that Thranduil can hold him here for hours if he wishes to; but this, thank all the gods, is not his mind tonight. He withdraws once again to press Bard fully to the bed and kiss him, swallows Bard’s disappointed whine in his mouth and slides their hips together. Enough, Bard thinks; frees his hands from Thranduil’s hair and pushes him, rolls him over onto his back and up against the headboard, kneels across his thighs. Thranduil’s palms are hot curves against his hips, and Bard tips back his head, allows himself a ragged moan as he reaches down, helps Thranduil slide inside.

He knows from the moment it begins he cannot last for long. Bard’s hands already shake where they rest against the bed, sweat falling freely from his chest, each breath roughened by the very edges of a moan. Thranduil shifts his hips, and Bard gasps at the hot burn of aching pleasure, the way it leaves him dizzy-headed and desperate. Thranduil’s hand gently cups his face, fingers splayed against his jaw and thumb against his lips, loose and trembling with each breath. Eight years, Bard thinks, eight _years_ , and now he cannot bear it, cannot breathe around the weight of it –

Bard rocks his hips, and the feeling is unnameable, the way it twists at every nerve, shoots warmth through every vein. Thranduil’s hair is stained dark with sweat, his breath snatched and helpless, fingers tight in Bard’s hair as he begins to move, hauling him down for their mouths to meet again. Every moment of it drags, each movement hot and hard, perfect and aching, almost unbearable in its intensity. A fresh angle catches Bard unawares, and bright sparks of pleasure shoot through his gut; Bard gasps suddenly against Thranduil’s mouth, and the king beneath him moans raggedly, fingers raking roughly down Bard’s back, desperate and clumsy.

Close, now – all too much – Bard pulls back to wrench in air, and Thranduil’s mouth slides roughly down his neck, comes to settle in the crux of his throat, catches the soft skin between his teeth and bites. Thranduil reaches down, takes Bard in hand, and Bard’s already half-apart when he hears the words, _please_ – _an ngell nîn – _

The world falls away around him as he comes, mouth slack and shoulders shaking, his broken cries dragged out into Thranduil’s hair. Shock-shivering and gasping, he recovers back into himself long enough to watch Thranduil be torn apart beneath him, his unseeing eyes thrown wide, his nails digging deeply into Bard’s skin, as if desperate for some anchor. Bard holds his face gently in his hands, murmurs nonsense against his mouth and kisses him as his breathing slows again, his hands loosening at Bard’s hips.

Sweat still gathers freely at Thranduil’s brow, and Bard brushes back his silver hair, smiling easily. “Is my honesty really all you’ve missed?” he murmurs, voice still rough and warm, and Thranduil laughs, the rare sound impossibly welcome to his ears, his face bright with the wide smile Bard once thought to never see again. It seems to Bard then that he has not been breathing fully these past eight years; that he, like Legolas, has spent them wandering, and now finally he is home.

 

 

 

The elf-king sleeps like the dead, to Bard’s surprise; he supposes he has been short of easy rest these past few years. He himself cannot settle, lies awake and listens to the soft cadence of Thranduil’s breath until his tenseness builds to more than he can bear, and he stands and dresses quietly so that his pacing might not wake the king. Besides, he has wished often to walk through Mirkwood’s glades again, feel the soft press of the starlight against his skin, somehow always stronger and more beautiful here than in the world of men; Bard sees no reason why he should deny himself the pleasure.

The elves are fond of starlight too, and thus despite the hour the city is not itself deserted. Mindful of Thranduil’s words, Bard grants them all a wide berth, keeps his eyes downcast and his gaze neutral, attempts to appear unthreatening and small. He cannot say that this leaves him freed from their contempt, but in truth this dampens little the steady peace unfurling in his chest.

“I had not thought to find you here,” a voice behind him says, and Bard turns to find Legolas is watching him, wearing shining silver robes and a carefree smile, a few steps short of a cocky grin. He had forgotten how much more striking Legolas is in the company of elves, how the starlight filtered by the distant-topped trees adds an extra brilliance to him; he seems so far removed from the anxious figure who had approached him at the docks at Dale, not even a week ago.

“I have missed this place,” Bard replies in greeting, smiling, and Legolas falls into step beside him, his strides light and easy, their silence warm and comfortable.

They pass many others along the way, who nod with grace towards the prince and throw little but disdain his way. If he were a simpler man – if he were merely the bargeman he’d been before – he would not understand that their lack of deference to him is in itself an insult, that in their failure to bow and murmur gracious words they are treating him ill. On any other night, he could perhaps bring himself to care; but he has too much to be grateful for tonight to worry. It seems to concern Legolas more than him; when they find themselves alone again, his brow is twisted ever so slightly with a frown, the closest Bard has ever come to seeing him fall prey to anger. “You realise they show you a great disrespect?”

Bard shrugs. “Your father warned me this might be true. It matters little.”

“It should matter more. You have to live near us, to trade – ” He pauses, allows himself a full scowl, and Bard has to hide a smile at the familiarity of Thranduil’s glower on Legolas’ face. “My father is not alone in wanting to close up our borders. Men bring to us only ill news and troubles, and are not greeted well.” He seems then to catch sight of Bard’s expression; he raises his hand, shakes his head. “Forgive me – you mistake my meaning; I would not have it so. I only wish to say that others would.” Legolas sighs slightly. “We have lived in peace for so many years now; but they understand now, I think, that evil will come to us regardless of the height of our gates or the strength of our walls. That it will always find a way.”

“My childhood was long and blessed,” Legolas continues quietly, his voice softening slightly with the words. “With the war behind us, it was not thought I would come to rule before our people passed into the West. It saddens me to think that this will not always be so, that so many others will come of age in an era of fear and war.” They pause together in an endless, starlit glade; Legolas glances at Bard, and for a moment his eyes are impossibly ancient and remote. “My mother died to save me from such suffering. My grandfather, too.”

This is not fresh news to Bard; but it had not struck him before the perceived pointlessness of this sacrifice in Thranduil’s eyes, the death of his father, his beloved thrown away on an evil which always triumphs, which always will rise again. “Your father does not speak of it,” he says, quietly.

Legolas smiles sadly. “He would not.” He hesitates, regards Bard for a moment, as if wondering how best to explain. “To elves, death is as unnatural as our long lives must seem to men. I think in part this is why my father sent me to the north – to better understand the griefs of men. To ready myself for the war that is to come.”

They stand silently for a moment; it seems so strange to talk of death and war in so beautiful a place, golden air and silver starlight, the soft susurrus of the trees. Such suffering seems a thousand worlds away. The exhaustion that had so eluded Bard before now seems to find him fully at the thought, settle across his shoulders like a heavy weight; he rubs briefly at his eyes, and Legolas offers him a small smile, gestures back towards the path, an arcing bridge Bard knows will take him back towards Thranduil’s chambers. “Still,” Legolas adds lightly as they walk, “my kin will be courteous to you at least. They owe you a very great debt.”

Bard frowns his confusion. “How so?”

“I came here to find my home hidden from me, and I searched alone for it in vain,” Legolas replies, and his words are solemn. “Without you I would not have found the way.”

The knowledge sinks uncomfortably into Bard’s skin. It is a life-debt of sorts, he knows; and whatever ill opinion the elves may hold of him, they will respect him for it. But that had not been the purpose behind his actions; that he cannot act in the slightest way without the tangles of politics now makes him weary. “Aye,” Bard agrees quietly. “That may be so.” He glances at his companion, smiles. “But I would not have ventured back into the forest alone.”

 

 

 

Bard returns to find Thranduil no longer sleeping; and this brings forth a quiet twinge of guilt, that the elf-king woke to find himself alone. “Forgive me,” Bard says as he enters, Thranduil loosely wrapped in robes and staring out of the arcing window. “I could not settle. I didn’t wish to wake you.”

Bard comes to stand beside the king, looks out himself at the sprawling view, the seemingly endless realm of Thranduil’s kingdom. “You were with Legolas,” Thranduil says, and Bard knows better than to question how the elf-king knows this; he has often unkindly thought that a leaf seems not to fall in Thranduil’s lands without him knowing. But something seems to trouble him; that self-same frown rests upon his brow, his lips thin, his eyes soft and weary. “I have not yet thanked you,” he says eventually, and the words seem somehow half-caught inside his throat. “For bringing him back to me.”

Bard cannot help but smile at this, warm and bright and open. “You have,” he murmurs fondly in reply; and the look Thranduil gives him is beyond measure, raw and bare and unmistakeable in its affection.

 

 

 

Come morning, Bard knows with a heavy heart he must return to Dale. His own mind would have him tarry longer in the Wood-King’s halls; and in truth, he doubts sincerely that his sovereignty would fall if he stayed a further night or two. But Bard is not even a decade into his rulership, and though he is at present well-liked, they both know the fickleness of men’s hearts, how the smallest seed can stagnate to breed an army.

Still, he does not hurry. He dresses slowly, breakfasts with the king, allows himself a second, lazy walk through Mirkwood’s glades, the air warm and somehow golden to the touch. He drinks in the soft, bright air, listens in silence to the gentle chatter of the leaves, before he finally returns to Thranduil’s chambers and readies to depart.

The elf-king has gifted him a cloak, long and thick and of the palest grey, and he affixes it across his shoulders when he is all but done. “You realise the nature of what we do here,” Thranduil says quietly, his fingers unusually slow with the simple clasp. “That it must be done in secret, for fear of the resentment it might bring. That many months may pass between our meetings.”

“Aye,” Bard replies quietly, heavily. “I do.” The clasp fastens with a click; Thranduil’s fingers skim lightly down Bard’s front, settling the fabric. Bard glances at him, suddenly uneasy. “You would rather we did not?”

“No,” Thranduil swiftly replies, his fingers clenching briefly in the folds, and Bard swallows back a smile. “I just did not wish to think you ill-prepared for it.”

“I am not,” Bard says, his amusement lilting his tone. “I have waited years,” he adds quietly, his voice wearied by the words but free of malice. “Mere months will seem like nothing now.”

“They will pass for me like centuries,” Thranduil murmurs in reply, and leans down and kisses him again, soft and warm and firm, unmistakeably a farewell.

They linger together for a moment, and then grudgingly they part, Bard gathering up his things and making ready for the journey. Bard pauses as he turns to go, finally voices the question which has weighed heavily on his mind since the night before. “Is it true?” he asks, softly. “That the evil in the east rises once again.”

Thranduil pauses, clearly troubled. “Yes,” he eventually replies, eyes sad and faraway. “Not in your lifetime. A hundred years, perhaps.” The thought sends a cold wrench of fear deep inside Bard’s chest; that this great unknown malevolence will come long after he is gone, attack his children and his home. As if sensing his thoughts, the elf-king looks at him and says, voice true and calm and strong, “I will protect them. Your children, and theirs, and all theirs still to come. For as long as I still walk this earth, I swear it. I will protect them.”

Bard stares back at him in silence, unease still spreading in his gut. “And if Legolas were truly dead?” he asks quietly, cruelly, though he wishes he must not. “Would you lock yourself away? Would you pass into the West and leave them to their fate?”

Thranduil looks away, the tight clench of his jaw betraying his anger at Bard’s words; but they both know that truly they are fair. “No,” he replies, eventually, and his words are slow and softly spoken. “I will not.” Thranduil straightens slightly, inclines his head, turns his firm gaze back towards him, and says, “Until this evil has fallen wholly, or death claims me, I will stay.”

 

 

 

The feast brings with it the first edges of the spring; the cold air warmed by a thin, bright yellow sun, the sky in all directions a brilliant, clear blue. The trees have begun to unfurl the earliest of their leaves, the first few peppering of snowdrops, their soft white hats peeking up beneath the mud-smudged snow.

They stand in the square before the palace, worn and rugged with the passing of time, their famed architect still on his steady journey north. But it matters not; the whole courtyard is emblazoned with banners of all colours, red and blue and green and gold, the colours of the house of Girion shining alongside those of Thranduil’s, rippling brilliantly in the warm southern wind. Later the stage will be stripped away, replaced with tents and tables overspilling with food and drink, and elves and men will dine together until the light of the next day; but for now he and Thranduil stand together before the crowd, the solemn reaffirmation of the friendship of their kin performed, as kings must, on the grandest scale. Thranduil stands tall and proud in robes of finest gold, the smallest green leaves entwined in the jagged branches of his crown, and it is almost more than Bard can bear, to look at him in all his beauty and his splendour.

Thranduil raises a perfect hand, beckons to the elves behind him; the trio steps forward with their gifts, one for each of Bard’s children. All weapons of elvish make, all passed down through Thranduil’s kingdom since the time of Gil-galad: a fine bow of ancient Mallorn for Sigrid, recarved to fit her hands; a suit of armour for Bain, wrought keenly to sit against his chest like a second skin; and a sword of sharpest steel for Tilda, enchanted to warn her if her enemy is near, whomever they might be.

Bard has no great halls filled with riches, no skilled ironmongers to craft weapons fine enough for an elf. He has but one heirloom; and this he offers to Thranduil gladly, laid out against a soft cushion in Sigrid’s steady hands. Bard had long since meant to gift the emeralds to the king, but the years had grown between them before he had the chance; and it now warms his heart to see him have them. He and he alone spies the trembling of Thranduil’s hands as he passes his thin fingers along their surface, glittering brightly in the fresh light of the spring sun.

The crowd lets out a mighty cheer, and Bard cannot hold back a smile, spreading wide and brilliant across his face, warming him through to the bone. He sees the tiniest echo of it at Thranduil’s mouth, struggling to break through his solemn, kinglike countenance, and Bard wishes more than anything to twine his fingers in that silver hair, to pull him close, to kiss him –

 – but truly, just to have him here, their families about them and the first hints of summer on the air, after so many years of darkness, of loneliness, to live with love, to live with hope fulfilled once again – it is enough.

**Author's Note:**

> a brief note on the Sindarin: I hopped between a number of resources (namely: [this](http://www.elvish.org/gwaith/sindarin_intro.htm), [this](http://www.jrrvf.com/hisweloke/sindar/online/english.html), [this](http://folk.uib.no/hnohf/vocab.htm), [this](http://www.arwen-undomiel.com/elvish/phrases.html), and [this](http://www.elfdict.com/)), and wherever Sindarin is included in the text the English accompanies it, but just in case, through the magic of my terrible html skills, you can now hover over the elvish in the text to read the translation. like I said, if you have any corrections/alternate suggestions for translations, I'd welcome them gladly!


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